State board does not dictate school tax rates

In a recent Standard-Speaker article and in a letter to the editor reference was made to a STEB (State Tax Equalization Board) formula used for computing school district taxes. The reference by board member Brian Earley and McAdoo Councilwoman Mary Labert and Mayor Watro is wrong.

I have been on the State Tax Equalization Board for the last 13 years and there is no STEB formula for computing school district taxes. Anyone perpetrating this misnomer is wrong.

The primary function of STEB is to determine annually the aggregate market value of taxable real estate in each political subdivision and school district throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The market values are used by the Department of Education as one factor in a legislative formula for the distribution of state subsidies to each school district in the Commonwealth. These market values are available around July of each year and are available to the public.

There are three formulas available to school districts lying in more than one county. These may be found in Pennsylvania School Law 6-672.1 of the state School Code. It is up to the discretion of each school district which formula they choose to use.

Where the confusion may come in is that the STEB market values are used in the formulas, but STEB does not choose which formula a school district is to use nor offer any advice in that area.

Daniel Guydish,

member, State Tax Equalization Board

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